


Feathery Issues

by tautochrying



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Davesprite has bird problems, Hurt/Comfort, Illustrations, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Someone hug these boys, how does one tag, i mean kinda hurt comfort, preening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 01:39:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7781893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tautochrying/pseuds/tautochrying
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Davesprite wasn't even sure what he was doing when he tried to reach behind his back solely to fix out some feathers gone astray. He definitely needed help, who better to go to that the local perfectionist insomniac that actually somehow deals with all of his bullshit anyway?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feathery Issues

**Author's Note:**

> Even with what I'm assuming is the correct relationship tag, keep in mind this is a platonic relationship. No romance intended. My screaming aside, I worked pretty dang hard on this, and I was so happy my friend sky drew art for my fic. Check their blog out at http://davspriite.tumblr.com seriously their art is so great I can't help but include it in here

Davesprite knocked on Hal’s door, a tad cautiously. The sprite crossed his arms as he stayed in his spot, breathing in through his nose and sighing out with each breath as he waited. Seconds felt like minutes, but maybe it could just be the situation make him so tensed up with everything. It nearly felt like forever until Lil’ Hal opened the door, tilting his head in confusion at the sight of Davesprite.

After all, he didn’t usually visit the robot’s room, let alone at two in the morning. Sure Hal didn't exactly need sleep, and even then he could go a fairly long time without recharging, an average of four days before shit went down the drain to the point he needed to charge. Even with visits being rare from the orange sprite, this was an important thing he was going to do.

“Can I ask you a favor?" Davesprite paused, and when Hal nodded he continued. “I need help...fuck there’s no way to make this not weird. I need help preening.” He made a small face at how mumble he got, he shouldn't be this quiet. He shouldn't be this awkward despite any situation.  
Davesprite wasn’t exactly good with admitting this type of stuff really, not like it was something bad, more like it was just odd to admit to a robot guy ‘hey my wings are doing this thing and i need some help with this plethora of orange feathers’. Which then again, he was talking to a robot, and that was already odd enough by forgotten human standards. It was quite possible it didn’t even matter.

“Preening?” Hal began. “I’m not sure if that would be considered awkward to admit from you, you are partially bird correct?”  
Davesprite sighed, shrugged a bit and nodding. “Well I mean it’s not like it's odd for me, but still, how do you just walk straight up to a guy and tell them you might need them to get their hands all up in a feathery mass of neon orange bullshit.”

“Well like that I suppose. So fuck it, come on in.” Hal gestured for Davesprite to enter the room, moving to his bed and patting the sheets. “Here we are,” Hal said as Davesprite dragged himself over with a face that near completely read ‘is this really fucking happening.’

Of course it was, part of him just couldn’t believe he had brought himself over and was about to get help with preening from a robot. He extended one great orange wing so that Hal could reach. It wasn’t common for Hal to smile and all, but he did admit the wings were fascinating. From an outside perspective of a robot that loved to analyze, to calculate, to figure out the exact from every situation. So, to say the least, he spent a while merely grazing his hands over the soft feathers, a bit of a buzzing hum escaping the part of him that let noise be an actual possibility.

Davesprite sighed. for a moment, letting his tail kind of curl up almost as if he had his knees brought to his chest. Well, if he actually had knees then that would be a shit ton more accurate. Hal’s hands were precise and gentle as he smoothed out the first feather, and a small cooing noise came from Davesprite. When he had tried preening his feathers himself, he wasnt ever this good. He always ended up slipping over or pulling something, or in this. It probably helped that Hal didn’t have to reach all the way to his own back.

Hal, hummed a bit once more, head moving almost as if he were scanning the feathers to see if he could exactly place what needed to be done. Though, within mere seconds he had simply begun running his hand over the feathers again. “My research says preening is a normal thing for birds, I’m assuming the human half is getting in the way of the process?”

“I can’t reach my own damn wings, unfortunately I didn’t get enough of the birdy bullshit anatomy to be able to curl myself over to peck at my giant ass feathery wings.” Davesprite let out a small little huff, almost sounding like a light chirp of annoyance. Of course it was solely directed towards himself, the fact he needed help with this in the first place.

Hal let out a sound that resembled a sigh, though it was a bit too robotic sounding to pass for much more than what it was, just a sound produced by programming to replicate a human expression and all. "It seems like it would be a problem, but I'm willing to help, so don't worry your birdy ass off about the whole thing. Preening seems fairly simple, and metaphorically if push comes to shove I can always do a quick run through my database to see all the information I have stored about it. I'm sure I could get more on it if needed."

"What you know is fine, probably, and I can always direct you through it. Just don't fuck up any wings and everything will be chill in the Davesprite central command center." Once more he was hyper aware of his voice, how mumbly he kept getting with certain words, there was a big combination of things stuck on his mind that were slowly shattering the usual deadpan barriers that were always set up. Nonetheless he kept his wing spread out, quietly cooing as careful hands ran over his feathers and smoothed them out, it was almost like some weird equivalent of a massage in some ways, even if there wasn't any tension being lifted in some sense of the word.

"You know, something seems to be bothering you, I am in fact not only programmed to make snarky comments and everything. Listening is a primary function as well," that digitalized voice that was borderline human rung out again, echoing a bit in the silence of the room. Hands wired with enough sensors to have a better sense of the world than even actual humans would still running over the feathers, memorizing the texture and all that came with. "I don't believe volume can harm me either, feel free to squawk and or scream as loud as you want to squeeze possible frustrations out."

Davesprite's eyebrows furrowed nigh instantaneously, his tail curling and bending upwards more to the point he could be hugging the one area that bent a bit like knees would to his chest. If he weren't making every attempt not to start curling up like some damsel in distress that is. "As much as I'd love to drop every single piece shit down like some weird pigeon defacing a perfectly fine mom van, I don't think I want to dump it all out on you. Robo dude or not really, quite frankly I don't think it's that important."

"Well," he smoothed down a couple of feathers once more as his eyes watched the actual movement of the feathers his motions caused. "I think that if it's bothering you enough for fuckmess metaphors to come into play this soon then it can't be as unimportant as you claim."  
Well shit, the guy had him there at least. "I mean... Fine, that's true, but still. It's probably dumb."

"The only way to judge the supposed stupidity of the problem at hand would be for said problem to be stated first, other steps can follow suit."

"Well it." Davesprite moved his hands up, gesturing vaguely while his jaw worked without sound before he slumped back over in defeat. "It's just this I guess."

"Us? Or a more specific 'this'? There are multiple things at the current point in time you could be referring to." Hal tilted his head to the side, hands stopping above a patch of slightly crooked feathers so he could better focus on Davesprite, not to mention what the other was referring to.

"No not, I just mean this. In general. The fact I need to do this type of shit in the first place, I've got feathers for fucks sake."

"So it's about the bird counterpart is it?"

Davesprite opened his mouth for a moment before it shut, eyebrows lowering as his gaze shifted down to trace the shape of the wrinkles in the bed sheets. "Maybe it is, maybe I'm just still getting hit with the fact I'm more of a freak show than I used to be, weird shit beforehand aside this takes the goddamn cake and shoves it directly in Egbert's face."

"'Freak show' isn't a proper term I'm afraid. Compared to most here, including myself, you kind of rank around some of the least abnormal ones." The way he spoke had him sounding so sure of himself, then again almost everything Hal said was entirely composed of facts or fact based opinions, but he continued his slow careful working at the feathers and all.

"And what exactly is that bull fuckery supposed to mean?" His voice didn't raise much, staying at this low monotone volume that sounded pathetic if you asked him.

"It means that being part bird isn't entirely an odd thing at this point. Look at Jade, she's been fused with her old dog. Hell, I'm a brain copy of another guy that started out as an autoresponder that may have gotten a bit too self aware."

"Well I know it doesn't sound weird anymore but still, I don't exactly fit in with the others around here. There's already a Dave and as awesome as we are, I'm fairly fucking certain he's got the center spot light of this mess when it comes to the game of pick that Dave."

"That may be true, but it's not like it's any competition for the reigning champion of bullshit extraordinaire. And this may not be reassuring, but the people you're probably thinking control that spotlight have known him for longer than you have."

Once more he sighed, although this was more a small slow huff of air through his nostrils than it was an actual sigh one would expect. "I know, and I know I get to talk to them more now but I just... I guess I don't want to? Something about it just feels odd."

"I could imagine so, but at least they care about you. Don't even lie to yourself, it's obvious that they do, I'm almost completely sure Harley just doesn't want to bother you at this point."

"Sure, it's possible some of them actually give a sliver of a flying fuck about the copy Dave merged with a bird. But still, I feel like I'm pushing them away on my own without any exterior lack of a shit to give from others."

"I can relate to that, no one exactly initiates immediate conversation with the robo brain copy for the sheer fun of it. Either Dirk is away or whoever has reached me is bored enough out of their skulls that they decided talking to me was a good idea."

Davesprite felt his expression scrunch up at that, a bitter look that he got at times. It was never entirely often he got the expression. Mainly when something somehow managed to really get to him, managed to hit him close, even with Hal quickly but precisely smoothing feathers out and easing the uncomfortable feeling Davesprite still felt it. An uncomfortable knot forming in the pit of his stomach and snowballing, rolling over and over until he was scowling down at the bedsheets beneath him.

“Bullshit.”

“What?” Hal asked, genuinely curious, not to even mention a bit surprised. He'd never heard the others voice go on that level of pissy and oh boy was it an experience to hear. Odd, rough sounding coming from the usually fairly quiet sprite.

“That's bullshit and I hate it, you of all people don't deserve that shit. You're not even a fucking copy anymore at this point, you hardly ever were, sure maybe in the beginning you were somewhat of an alternate. Heavily based on Dirk, a technical copy, but you aren't just a fucking copy okay?” Light orange arms flew around a bit with more expression, his face going through fifty different phases of pissed and annoyed. “You just aren't, you've got your own body your own personality, doesn't mean donkey shit how similar you are to the quote unquote other you. Because that, is pure bullshit.”

Hal’s hands has halted, robotic eyes wide behind the glasses he had long ago gotten where he could remove them from his own face. He wasn't the type to breathe, but the low humming of machines and programs running to keep him up and technically alive almost made up for the lack of breath. Hell, if anything the way Davesprite was huffing was enough to cover it for both of them.

“Are,” he paused, thinking over his words at a million miles a second, restarting as soon as the sentence was formed. “Davesprite, do you want to talk about this?”  
His heavy breathing hitched, letting go into a sigh as his voice lowered. “What do you mean?”

“I may be wrong,” the robot of the two said as he slid over a bit to the side, using the fact he needed to get to other feathers on the more outer parts of the others wing as an excuse to see his face better. “But it seems like you were talking about more than just one party in that little outburst.”  
Davesprite found himself suddenly very interested in the wall in front of him, very content with keeping his lips pressed into a thin line that just read that he was caught in the midst of a storm of his own bullshit. Minutes passed with only the sound of Hal's soft whirring and the sound of feathers shifting every now and again, but eventually he spoke up. “Fine, maybe I decided to include my neon orange ass in the rejected duplicates party.”

“I thought the entire point of the earlier outburst was that neither of us are duplicates, although I can't find myself grasping a decent argument on the rejected bit.” As always his voice was steady, it always was. It hardly faltered unless there was a malfunction, or some really big genuine uncontrollable bit of emotion.

“It was a figure of speech, or more what most seem to think anyway. I know we’re separate, and no one can tell me otherwise because I'll hit them in the fucking face with my tail or a wing if at all possible.” He huffed a bit, folding his arms over that little bent part about a third of a way down his tail where knees would be, moving to rest his head over his arms despite the feeling of glasses pushing into the side of his face.

“Understandable in all honesty, I can't say that I haven't had my own little hissy fits about being treated like a thing that isn't self aware and self dependent.”

“Like someone who can't possibly have feelings of their own?” His head tilted a bit, as much as physics would let him with the position he was in. Though, all that did was get his glasses back a bit on his face while also managing to get them completely askewed. He merely sighed and fixed them, head still turned to the side as it was tilted in his questioning.

“Exactly as such. It's easy for people to forget you aren't an emotionless artificial intelligence stuck inside a pair of glasses when you still look like a stereotypical emotionless thing.”

Davesprite couldn't help but notice it. Hal’s voice dropped at least a single notch, going a bit quieter and just a tad less monotone than usual, not to mention he could just tell the mechanic red eyes of the other were flicking over the pattern of the feathers behind those dark glasses. It wasn't hard to tell when Hal was hyper focused on things, he was working faster on helping with the feathers and his head moved with his hands. So essentially, his gaze was directly following wherever he had his hands at the moment.

“Hal.” A simple thing, hardly any actual form of a full sentence. Yet it met a fair bit, it was filled with a lot more than just a name drop. It was like the short and simple equivalent of telling the other in the room to stop metaphorically shutting off and spill what the actual fuck was up.

While Davesprite was basically bringing up extra confrontation, Hal’s shoulders rose up ever so slightly as he hesitated over another patch of crooked feathers. Sensors on hands running over feathers with exact ideas of how to straighten them out and fix them to help Davesprite. He kept going, kept staring at where his hands were, following patterns only someone like him could directly memorize as quickly as he did.

Even knowing he was being confronted Hal stayed silent, which only resulted in the other in the room sitting up and saying his name again. This time dragged out longer than the last, causing the robot to give something that resembled a sigh as he let his hands rest in one little patch of feathery fluff.

And then, he began.

“It's just stupid, robots are all kinda expected to be fuckin’ emotionless and cold. No one apologizes if they say something that makes me visibly drop, it's always some little mutter about how Dirk is so good at programming. There's reasons I've just started staying to myself, in here, doing my own little thing. I get the feeling hardly anyone has genuinely considered hey, maybe the dude with a nigh exact copy of an actual human brain as his main base for his program could possibly feel shit. Or maybe it's just me being wrong about such a thing, it could be one of the first times I haven't managed to grasp a situation properly.”

For a moment, roles were reversed, except instead of Hal moving his arms everywhere during his little rant he stayed fairly still. Well, near completely still save for the actual moving of his mouth, not to mention the fact he just kept smoothing down the patch of feathers his hands hovered and rested in throughout the whole thing. 

“I’m not trying to put myself on a pedestal here, but I'm pretty damn sure at this point we've proven ourselves in enough of the same bullshit boat to the point you can believe me when I say I considered it. When you show yourself to the light of day, I kinda just waited for anything to prove me right or wrong, because I didn't want to be a rude dick about it. It'd be like breaking the bro code in some odd way that definitely makes sense.”

Hal snorted a bit, letting his eyes roll albeit slightly, soon enough his gaze was back down to the patches of feathers he was straightening out. “Sure, sure, of course. But really, I'm glad at least you have a fairly good understanding on what's up. It's reassuring in a way.”

“Like it's nice to have another person to talk to about bullshit feelings, wanted or unwanted?” A rare grin spread across the sprite’s face, mostly to emphasize the odd sense of humor found in his statement. Hell, Hal was giving a small little whirring chuckle of his own at it so at least something good came from it.

“Yeah, exactly. Pretty damn awesome having a co-captain of the Strider Bullshit Feelings express as opposed to running the whole thing single handedly.”

“Um, excuse you dude,” he sat up a bit more, infusing his tone with a sarcastic sense of offense as he continued, “I believe I was already captain, that makes you co-captain.”

Hal couldn't help but laugh, shoulders shaking a bit as he did so. “Holy fucking shit, did you just correct a fuckin’ robot? I knew you were a bit dense at times but damn son, how does one manage to think the best course of action is to correct the guy who hardly ever gets shit wrong in the first place?”

“First of all, you're starting to sound pretty fucking cocky there, don't test me dude I will personally kick your ass in the most metaphorical way possible. And second of all, I will correct you anyway because we can't both be co-captain and we can't both just be captain of SS Strider Bullshit.”

“Technically speaking we could make it a joint effort, commanding the dumb ship together?” One side of Hal's mouth tugged upwards with how he was smiling, cheeky and lopsided as he ran with the little joke at hand.

“Oh hell yeah, good idea, just tugging at the ropes and shit to adjust the sail, how do boats even work, don't answer that. Hypothetical question, I don't actually give a singular floaty fuck how a boat works, nor do I give a shit about how to actually do shit on a boat and make the sails do shit.”

Hal shook his head, shifting a bit again to easier reach the next large section of the wing he was working on, smiling to himself as he alternated between nothing down feathers and kind of glancing up at the very person he was helping. “I honestly don't think I need to know half of the shit I do, but yet I do, then again that's what happens when you have access and or are programmed with a shit ton of information.”

Davesprite let out this exasperated sounding chirp mixed with what could vaguely be made out as a groan, throwing his arms out in front of himself again. “Fucking, tell me about it, I mean maybe we aren't in the exact same bullshit boat here but for fucks sake, noting too much is something I can sympathize with.”

The humming noise Hal let out for a couple of moments was revealed oddly soothing to the sprite, that along with the work he was doing with the feathers had Davesprite actually fairly calm for the topic he was on. It could've been the mix of everything somewhat calming him, or maybe just the fact he was talking to someone who could understand even slightly on a level that didn't involve multiple “I guess”s being spouted every other sentence.

“You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to,” came the robot’s voice again. There were subtle changes in the way Hal was moving his hands to smooth the feathers, just slower in general, not so much anything else.

Davesprite couldn't be sure, but part of him took it as attempts of indirect comfort and all. It sure as hell worked as such, getting the sprite’s breathing back down to an even steady pace, if his eyes were asleep and he made a couple of soft chirps every now and then the dude could probably pass for being asleep. Even when he spoke his voice was quiet, even as not asleep as he was. It was just relaxation slipping into his tone. “I mean it's not like I don't want to, I just don't think it's much to talk ‘bout. I know a bunch’ve shit from the game and it’s stupid, that's about the bottom of the barrel.”

Hal nodded, scanning over for any feathers he missed before heading over to the next patch of feathers, starting to find the ones he needed to fix as he had done with the previous patches he went through, working as if there was a graph to follow. Section after section. “It's your choice, I won't be forcing you to talk about anything, but at the very least I can say we stand on similar ground with the subject.”

Davesprite smiled, letting his eyes drift shut for a moment, deep breath in and deep breath out, letting himself actually be relaxed for the first time in a while. The silence was nice, for once not deafening and smothering, unlike the usual silence. It wasn't empty, hell it could hardly be considered silence with the near silent buzzing of the running mechanics near him. “You know Hal,” he opened his eyes a bit, looking over at Hal best he could with his own wing in the way, “you're a pretty nice guy, no metaphors and no irony in this at all as disappointing as that is.”

Once more Hal froze up, not like it took him very long to register what Davsprite had said, more or less he just kept playing it over in his head. Hardly could he remember times where anyone so genuinely said such a thing to him, sure there may have been times one of the others had, once or twice, but he couldn't recall much more than that. The freezing wasn't a bad thing, more just him going into the little hyper focus mode. Soon enough his hands were back in a patch of feathers, another lopsided smile similar to the one earlier spreading on his face.

It took him a few seconds, but he got the words out. Quieter than usual, tone lined with more emotion than usual, all in one small mumble of “Thanks.” Davesprite himself couldn't help but notice it, the sides of his mouth rising a slight bit more than already. 

“It's no problem dude, just the truth.” His words felt heavy in some sense, but more of a way where he sounded half asleep. Like his brain was working and he had all that in order, but the signals to speak were lagging, making him quieter. That's what you get when Davesprite is relaxed, a half asleep sounding bird boy.

“Well,” Hal’s own voice was still quiet, happy even, this odd mix of things that contrasted greatly to the usual near monotone expressions. He continued for a few seconds, “it's actually more of an opin-”

“Nope. Don't care. You're nice, no one can tell me otherwise, I'll fucking fight them. And by that I mean passive aggressively rant at them until they come to their senses.” Sure he had cut off Hal, but it was for a good cause.

For a moment, all one would have heard in the room was the faint sound of feathers brushing against one another, accompained by the soothing steady buzzing sort of a sound coming from the robot of the two. The quiet didn’t last entirely long, soon enough there was a soft sound of a chuckle coming from Hal. Hal, the one who never laughed, never smiled, always kept to himself, was laughing. Small and nearly silent sure, wranked with digital sounds that set it from a human variant as well, but he was still letting it willingly happen. And then it was speaking, the sound of smiling etched into his tone and matching his expression. “You’re a pretty nice guy too, all honesty there.”

Davesprite found himself smiling more at Hal’s laugh, he found it a fair bit better sounding than the hollow sarcastic chuckle that usually served as the only type of laugh that ever came from the other. It was always nice to see him so lively, ever since the guy was starting to get used to his new body Davesprite found himself watching from afar, trying not to be creepy. It was just kind of nice seeming someone learn, seeing someone grow and understand how to do things. “What is this turning into?

God damn honesty hour or some shit? Where are all the dumb jokes, where is the bullshit sense of humor.” He chuckled and shifted his wing down, snorting at Hal’s shirt.

“You need to live up to that thing dude.”

Hal found himself glancing down for a moment to look at the letters on his shirt, granted they were inverted in his perspective. Even then he knew it boldly read “MEME LORD” on his chest. It brought more laughter from him as he nodded, taking a moment to return to the feathers. “Hell yeah, I do need to live up to the shirt more. There would be no particular reason to have it in my possession if I couldn't live up to the title.”

“You probably know damn near every meme from every century on digital record, I'm fairly fucking certain you're already living up to the title.” Davesprite shifted his wing back up, glad to feel the tension of the messed up feathers raising as Hal kept straightening them out with exact motions, ones that got the feathers right without any actual struggle.

“Of course I do, it's all in my database, all I would need to do would be to do quick searches and pull something up that fits as a perfect response to any particular subject or question.” He gave a little shrug at that, having to turn his head back down from how he had started looking up as he spoke. A hint of a smile on his tone, as well as his expression.

“You talk like a nerd, maybe your shirt should say ‘nerd lord’ instead of that. They'd be equally accurate, I mean not like I intend to bring out the five year old playground insults but seriously. One time I heard you say some shit like-” His sentence cut off, rising kind of like a question. Then it was to humming to think. “What even was it again? Unformationed? I don't even remember when you said it but you sure as hell did say it.”

“It was probably aforementioned, and it means something stated beforehand. It's not my fault I know so many words and you know it Davesprite.” He was nearly done with the feathers on this wing he'd been working on, at this point it was mostly him just very content with laying his hands in the soft feathers, definitely softer than what he was sure the average bird’s feathers would feel like anyway.

Davesprite gave a small sigh, sounding like some child who had just been told it was past their bedtime when they completely knew they were about to be told. To add on to it all he followed the sigh with a drawn out graceful choice of words. “I knooooow I knoow. But still, doesn't change the fact you're a fucking nerd.”

“Well for it to be a fact there would need to be explicit proof, without this proof of supposedly being a nerd then it would instead be an opinion. It could be a widely accepted opinion but that doesn't make it-” he cut off, looking up at Davesprite. “What's that face?”

Before he went into expressive motioning around with his talking, Davesprite wore an expression of a large mix. Disbelief, amusement, things of that sort. “What do you mean what's that fac- you just entirely proved my point that you are a fucking nerd lord to rule them all.”

Hal rolled his eyes, another one of those not quite human sighs escaping him as he ran his hands over the last few out of place feathers, going back to letting his eyes track his hands movements for a moment.

Davesprite flexed his wing once Hal had pulled back, smiling a bit at the feeling of out of place feathers being gone on at least that side. He definitely was considering asking for help next time he actually needed it, mostly because Hal did a pretty fucking good job with preening. And that's coming from the half bird guy who has this muscle memory of how to preen himself, if being mostly human in form wasn't in the fucking way that is. “So, gonna admit you're a nerd lord or will it be quiet for the rest of this process, we still got one more wing.”

“Well, I'll admit it's possible that I may possibly fall under the opinionated category, but I can assure you there won't be quiet no matter how much I refuse to exactly admit such a thing.” He slid himself up from the bed, taking a few steps back simply to give room he knew would be needed. “Now come on, gotta get to the other wing don't we?”

Davesprite snorted, muttering a couple of things under his breath as he turned so his other wing was where it could be the one fanned out. He felt the light shift of the blankets as Hal sat down behind the wing, already getting started at straightening out the feathers.

Each little graphed out square Hal mapped out took about a minute or less to fix up if he didn't take his time feeling through the soft feathers, he was the only one out of the two really keeping track of time. He wasn't even looking at the clock, a small program in him constantly keeping track of the minutes. Seconds even.

On the other hand, Davesprite wasn't thinking much, letting himself relax a bit with the help from Hal. It's not like he could help it, the messed up wings made him a bit more uncomfortable than he cared to admit. As the tension there lifted he had the general reaction, relaxing and letting exhaustion from lack of sleep take over. The silence wasn't too bad, it could hardly be considered silence anyway. Between Davesprite’s soft humming and Hal’s mechanics working at their best the room was all but silent. But there wasn't any speaking, not for a while.

“Hey, Davesprite, it may just be me, but you seem like you're about to pass out,” Hal’s voice was quiet as he continued running his hand over the feathers, trying his best to do what he hoped wouldn't startle the other with breaking the streak that had been running.

Davesprite just hummed, picking his head up for a moment before yawning and let it drop back down. “Kinda sorta am,” came the tired mumble.

“Maybe you should get some sleep,” the end of his words raised up, almost as if it were more of a question than a suggestion or a statement.

“I’m gonna end up sleepin’ in my room at some point, just gotta get the wing shit over first.”

“Or you could, theoretically, sleep in here, I wouldn't mind.”

“I'll uh,” Davesprite stalled, hugging his not-so-knees more to himself, letting out another mumble, “I’ll think over it.”

Hal smiled and nodding, continuing his work at the feathers. He didn't speak further, letting Davesprite think, not doing much more than let a soft smile spread over his face when he noticed the shift in the others breathing that suggested he'd passed out regardless of thought process. It didn't take too long for Hal to finish the last bits of the wings, taking a moment to check over his work before carefully shifting off the bed.

He stood up fully, stretching himself out a bit, moving back as he suppressed a small laugh. The sprite currently still curled up on his bed had done a little shift in his sleep, wings shaking a bit and folding in as they usually were when he wasn't using them for anything. It brought a soft smile to Hal’s expression.  
Of course the shift of the wings made it easier for Hal to pick Davesprite up, carefully shifting the sprite to lay on a nearby couch, positioned where his wings would be fine unless something were to really mess it up. He shifted a bit of the orange hair to the side, taking the glasses and folding them to place on a side table.  
With soft sigh and near silent footsteps, Hal headed to his own bed, sitting down with a light rustle of blankets. It wasn't too long before he laid himself down, shaking his head a bit at Davesprite’s curled up form, the source of the quiet snores mixed with chirps that was moving through the room and merging with the other small sounds. Not long after his head hit a pillow did Hal let himself go, falling asleep with a small smile remaining on his face.

**Author's Note:**

> Well uh, hope you guys enjoyed this, I'm a slut for rarepairs and I'm trying my hardest lmao. I'd be grateful if you left a comment, just try not to be rude at the very least.


End file.
